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Metro Detroit will host 12 "multiple-hotel" meetings this year, twice the number it hosted in 2013.

And that was just the beginning of good news shared by Larry Alexander, president and CEO of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, during the organization's annual meeting Wednesday at Cobo Center.

People scheduled to attend those events have booked 236,000 hotel room nights in the region so far, which compares with bookings of 129,000 hotel room nights associated with meetings for all of 2013.

Among the events slated for 2014 is the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses International District Assembly, with two separate international meetings scheduled in Detroit, June 6-8 and July 24-27.

Those two meetings are expected to bring a total of 90,000 people to the region, Alexander said.

And with them, a projected $57 million in economic impact.

"Isn't it great that we can now say we're exceeding pre-recession levels?" said 2014 chairwoman Donna Inch, chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Land Development Corp.

News of the large number of events headed to the region this year follows record occupancy rates of 62 percent for hotels in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties in 2013, Alexander said.

Alexander attributed the rise in bookings, in part, to the $279 million expansion underway at Cobo, with its new ballroom, meeting spaces and atrium with floor-to-ceiling windows complete.

He also pointed to the significant private investment in Detroit's downtown area and the opening of the Crowne Plaza Ponchartrain and Hyatt Place Detroit Novi at the Suburban Collection Showplace as drawing interest and balancing national stories on Detroit's bankruptcy.

This year, among other things, the bureau said it plans to meet with national media in big cities to take its message of "America's Comeback City" on the road.

It also will put a strong focus on international marketing this year to Canada, China, the United Kingdom and Germany, Alexander said, adding that the convention and visitors bureau will have a presence at trade shows in London and Berlin in 2014.

Additionally, the bureau's subsidiary, the Detroit Sports Commission, is talking with national sports organizations that train Olympic-hopefuls about creating a multi-sport, multi-day event hosted in Detroit, said Dave Beachnau, executive director of the commission.

Such an event, which could take place as early as 2015, would allow four to five of the sports organizations to share the costs of a national meet and elevate the profile of sports such as volleyball and gymnastics, Beachnau said.